


The Winning Side

by Lbilover



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies)
Genre: Drama, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-18
Updated: 2017-04-18
Packaged: 2018-10-20 09:35:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10659825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lbilover/pseuds/Lbilover
Summary: The morning after the Unexpected Party, it's Baggins versus Took. Which side will win?





	The Winning Side

Bilbo blinked open his eyes, half-surprised to discover himself in his own comfortable feather bed. My, but he'd had the queerest dreams, he thought drowsily, as snatches of uproarious laughter and seductive song teased the edges of his consciousness. Closing his eyes again, he snuggled into the bedcovers, half-wishing he could recapture the dreams, for nothing so interesting or exciting had populated them since he was a child, when he dreamed of Adventure, of Elves and dragons and...

Dragons! In a rush memory returned; Bilbo's eyes popped wide open this time and he quickly sat up. Oh dear, oh dear. They hadn't been dreams at all. His beloved Bag End had been invaded by thirteen pesky Dwarves and one interfering busybody of a Wizard, who had proceeded to eat him out of hole and home and put wild, foolish fancies into his brain.

Sliding out of bed, Bilbo repressed a shudder as he recalled how close he'd come to signing that dratted contract. _Far over the Misty Mountains_ , indeed, he thought indignantly, pulling on his trousers and sliding the braces over his shoulders with a shrug. The Baggins side of him was in ascendance, and the Took side firmly squelched in the bright sunlight of a Shire morning.

Well, he would have a word, or rather thirteen, to say to Thorin and company, and this time visibly shuddered as he imagined the havoc they'd likely wrought in the kitchen, making breakfast with what precious little was left in his larder. Assuming, that is, that they were even up and not sprawled higgeldy-piggeldy around the parlour, sitting room and dining room, no doubt snoring loudly and drunkenly.

And then there was the little matter of his beautiful front door that Gandalf had damaged. The Wizard ought to paint it before he left, by the Bullroarer he ought. _I'll get out the green paint and a brush and make him_ , decided Bilbo.

With a little nod (quite a Tookish nod, if he could have known it) Bilbo marched briskly out of his bedchamber... and halted. The smial was dim and very quiet. It was a speaking quiet, and what it said was, _No one is home, Bilbo, save for you_.

No, it couldn't be. He couldn't be that fortunate, could he?

Bilbo crept with hobbit-stealth through the hall, listening intently, his ears pricked. Not a sound did he hear, not even the mice that dwelled behind the wainscoting and defeated his best efforts to make them go away. Rather like Dwarves, in fact.

'Hello,' Bilbo called cautiously, and when no one answered, he hurried into the kitchen (taking a peek up the chimney flue to be on the safe side) and let out an enormous sigh of relief. 'Yes!' he exclaimed softly, making a fist of triumph. They were gone, the lot of them, unlike the mice. He had his hole to himself again. Ah, the bliss!

Or so he told himself as stood in the dining room, listening to the quiet. Bilbo set his hands on his hips, looked around him at the neatness and order that he prized so greatly. A place for everything and everything in its place. 

Except for one thing. There, lying on the carpet and entirely out of place, was the contract. At the bottom two bold signatures in black seemed to stare challengingly up at him: _**Thorin, Son of Thrain**_ and _**Balin, Son of Fundin**_.

Bilbo stood quite still, still as only a hobbit can stand, and yet inside him raged a battle as epic as that which the Bullroarer himself had waged against the Goblin King all those years ago. Only this time, it was a battle of Baggins versus Took.

_If you go, there is no guarantee you will ever come home again,_ the Baggins side cautioned. _Adventures are all well and good to think about from the comfort of your armchair by the fire, but if you go on one for real, you will likely live to regret it._

To which the Took side replied, _If you don't go, one day you will realise that you should have, and that you've wasted the best years of your life sitting with your bum planted in a chair instead of living. And by then it will be too late._

Many things flitted rapidly through Bilbo's brain, a scattershot of images: his mother, Gandalf, starbursts of color exploding in the night sky, and lastly, a proud Dwarf with the fierce, unyielding profile of a bird of prey, staring into the fire as he began to sing, _Far over the Misty Mountains cold..._ Somehow, without him quite realising it, the deep sonorous song had sunk into Bilbo's very soul and taken up residence.

_We must away, ere break of day._

And so the Dwarves had, leaving Bilbo behind.

It was an intolerable idea. _No_ , he thought with determination, _you will not leave me behind._

Burglar Baggins bent and snatched up the contract.

The Took side had won.


End file.
